RPI scraped by with a late-period goal for a final score of 2-1.
Deadlocked going into the final frame, the Engineers' Allison Wright skated through traffic in front of the net to tip in the eventual game-winning goal for RPI.
This was the Engineers' first victory over Dartmouth (7-11-2, 5-9-1 ECAC Hockey) in their last ten meetings.
The Big Green had no difficulty creating opportunities, as the team put 46 shots on netminder Sonja van der Bliek.
RPI's freshman goalie remained solid in between the pipes, disrupting Dartmouth's offensive efforts, head coach Mark Hudak said.
"Getting that many shots with just one goal is very frustrating," he said.
Dartmouth fired 22 shots in the opening period alone, to no avail.
Alyssa Boehm '11 netted the Big Green's sole point of the match on a breakaway late in the middle frame. It was her first goal of the season.
The team had little time to celebrate, as RPI's Allysen Weidner sniped the puck past Mariel Lacina '10 off the near post, knotting the game up at 1-1 right at the end of the second period.
"The mental errors were down, the efforts were higher," Hudak said. "I thought it was one of our best games. We were very consistent for sixty minutes, and we made some great opportunities."
Lacina made 16 saves between the pipes.
Despite the discouraging start to the weekend, Dartmouth came back full-force against the Dutchmen on Saturday. Union crumbled under the pressure of the Big Green offense, as co-captain Jenna Cunningham '10 notched four points en route to a 8-1 Dartmouth victory.
The win broke the Big Green's seven-game winless streak.
The match opened with trouble for the Big Green, as Union sophomore Kelly Alyea swiped a wrist shot past Whitney Woodcox '13 to give the Dutchmen a quick one-point advantage just three minutes in.
Before the Union game, the Big Green made a few fine-tunings in the power plays and readjusted the forecheck among the lineups. Although the team eventually responded to the new changes, Hudak attributed the Dutchmen's early goal to Dartmouth's initial difficulties adapting to the adjustments.
"We started a little slow, but we also made some adjustments from last night that caught us off guard in the first five minutes of play," he said.
The changes paid off, as Dartmouth generated 39 shots to Union's 10 and went two-for-five in power-play opportunities.
Cunningham scored her first of four goals on the night with an equalizer 12 minutes into the first frame when she slipped the puck past Union's Alana Marcinko off the near post.
Jessica Gagner '13 posted her first collegiate goal and extended Dartmouth's advantage to two points with 30 seconds left in the opening period.
Woodcox collected her third win of the season, as she pushed aside nine saves for the Big Green.
Dartmouth returns to the ice early this week with a match-up against Boston College at 7 p.m. Wednesday night at Thompson Arena.
